Review Blog

Jul 14 2014

Captain Underpants and the revolting revenge of the radioactive robo-boxers by Dav Pilkey

Scholastic Australia, 2014. ISBN 9781743621806
(Ages: 9+) Laugh out loud humour with FLIP-O-RAMA that allows you to
animate the action.
Captain Underpants returns in his epic tenth novel with Mr Krupp who
turns into Captain Underpants with the click of a finger. In this
novel George, Harold, Sulu and Crackers embark on an adventure to
figure out a way to undo the time-travelling hijinks of Tippy
Tinkletrousers that prevented George and Harold from creating
Captain Underpants in the first place!
Tippy Tinkletrousers was in big trouble because he had zapped
himself back in time five years, and accidentally scared four
bullies from the school. This thoughtless mistake set in motion a
series of events that ultimately got Mr Krupp fired. Since there was
no Mr Krupp, there was no Captain Underpants. Since there was no
Captain Underpants, there was nobody to save the world from the
terrible devastation caused by the villains from the first three
epic novels.
To fix this problem Tinkletrousers decides he has to go back in time
to stop himself from scaring those four bullies. After several
seconds of made for television style of special effects, Tippy found
himself transported to the awful night of the terrifying
thunderstorm. He knew at any moment the four bullies would come
running from the school and tear across the football field. Then
they would come face to face with a slightly younger version of
Tippy who was the only one who could stop it all from happening.
Tippy, George, Harold, Sulu and Crackers constantly travel through
different times, including the caveman era where Tippy
Tinkletrousers gets pummelled in many different ways. By page
210 of the book, the author tells when and how our universe began,
what causes this to happen, what is this theory called, how did the
dinosaurs become extinct, what caused the last major ice age and who
made the world's first cave drawing. Unfortunately, this information
is not useful for any practical benefits.
Page 212 contains the 'I'm smarter than you' song which is bound to
make you giggle in true Underpants style.
The novel ends with the explosion back when nothing existed, when
Sulu, Crackers and Tippy cause the whole universe to form. While all
the action was happening, before Crackers left, she leaves three
purple and orange speckled eggs.
Could this be the beginning of another Captain Underpants adventure?
Stay tuned to find out.
Christina Sapio.